India and Canada’s geo-political spat had an immediate and profound impact on the Hindu-Canadian community. It amplified a disturbing trend of hateful attacks against this small religious minority. While anti-Hindu activities have been on the upswing over the last two years the most recent volley is from Sikhs for Justice, a US-based secessionist group. The organisation released a video which asks “Indo-Hindus” to “leave Canada; go to India”.
But, what adds insult to injury is this: days after this hateful call went viral, Canadian leaders, human rights groups, and other civil society organisations were largely silent aside from some minimal words of condemnation, which did not name the source of the threats. This was sad but not surprising to us given our past work and experience as a group focused on advocacy, education and representation for Hindus in North America. The video and the tepid official response are emblematic of what it has felt like to be Hindu in Canada for the past few years.
The absence of any sustained outrage and the lack of a muscular response from the Canadian mainstream has had a chilling effect. Hindu Canadians are now afraid for their personal safety and feel reluctant to defend themselves or speak up regarding their fears (on the record). Community leaders are scrambling to reinforce security for temples as well as for public events planned for the Hindu festival season currently underway. Police departments in the Greater Toronto Area have reached out to Hindu organisations reminding them to contact 911 in case of any threats.
One needs to understand the context of the video to understand the gravity of the threat. It is not an aberration but just the latest in a rising tide of Hindu hate that has found fertile ground in Canada, due to a hostile political landscape that often downplays violence against the community and local authorities who seek to deflect it as “political speech” or “freedom of expression”.
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Desecration of Hindu temples
Since 2021, the most striking and visible aspect of hate against Canadian Hindus has manifested in threats and repeated attacks against temples across the country. The community has witnessed more than two dozen around 10 break-ins and multiple incidents of vandalism. Priests and devotees alike seem almost inured to finding their temple burgled or defaced with anti-India slogans, never mind that devotees consist of Hindus from across the world.
Public Hindu icons are also at risk. Statues of Mahatma Gandhi are regularly attacked and even park signs sponsored by Hindus are not spared.
Even Diwali was singled out as a “cause for air pollution” by Environment Canada. The body has never put out similar announcements for Victoria Day/Canada Day or New Year’s Eve. It later apologised and edited the notice to remove any mention of Diwali and fireworks.
Self Censorship for Personal Safety
Naturally, there is a rise of fear and self-censoring in the community. Many Hindus, especially those with young families are thinking twice before attending religious ceremonies or celebrating festivals. These fears reflect the real-life harassment the community has faced. In 2021, a young family was assaulted by two teenagers shouting hateful remarks when they were performing a religious ceremony in a Mississauga park.
Last month, 68-year-old Dilip Kumar Dholani was stabbed 17 times in broad daylight while on a walk with his granddaughter. The police called it a ‘random’ attack. In another horrific incident last year, a 21-year-old university student from India was kidnapped, stripped naked, kicked in the face multiple times and told “you don’t belong here”. Yet, the police had then said that the attack was not racially motivated.
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Deflecting and denying Hinduphobia
Despite repeated attacks, Hindu-Canadians have struggled to find adequate support. Aside from social media posts or cursory news reports based on raw police data, there has been no interest in studying the broader reason for these repeated attacks.
Instead, a favourite tactic is to deflect violence against Hindus as “anti-India sentiment” versus calling it what it is — Hinduphobia. There is a double standard at play here for Hindu places of worship. The defacement of a synagogue is termed antisemitic, not anti-Israel. The targeting of a mosque is rightly treated as Islamophobia and not a political act against any Islamic country. Conflating the problems, issues or politics of India with Hinduism totally lacks logic since India is a secular country. Not to mention the temples are not just for Indian Hindus but are frequented/run by Hindus from many countries. Equal treatment requires that the vandalism of Hindu temples must be similarly reported on and tracked as Hinduphobia versus being masked as “anti-Indian” sentiment.
Canadian Hindus not just from India, but also from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Fiji, Guyana, Mauritius, Nepal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago are also feeling the increased prejudice. The Coalition of Hindus of North America spoke to second and third-generation Hindu immigrants, with familial roots in the West Indies, who now live in fear of being targeted for their faith.
Deep roots of Hinduphobia
In 2022, a historic study from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) at Rutgers University, uncovered shocking levels of hate against Hindus, advanced by white supremacists and Islamists via genocidal memes and coded language patterns, to caricature Hindus, present them as less than fully human and normalise hate or violence against them. The research uncovered parallels between anti-Hindu and antisemitic hate, imagery and tropes. The authors of the report were also surprised to find how little Hinduphobia was recognised or addressed by institutions, academics and media, including those focused on diversity, education, community outreach and safety, human rights, and religious freedom.
The violence we are seeing in Canada and the attempts by institutions to ignore, minimise or recategorise Hinduphobia, is in line with the findings of the Rutgers report.
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Call to Action
Canada is held up as a shining beacon for being a multicultural success story, one that other beleaguered societies are encouraged to emulate. Canadians are recognised the world over as being “polite”.
Albeit severely tested at this time, Hindu Canadians continue to have faith in Canada, in the goodwill of Canadians and in the robustness of Canada’s civil society institutions.
What’s needed is a proactive push by Canadian government agencies to investigate and prosecute each and every individual incident promptly and with the full weight of their offices. Equally important is for all agencies, institutions, and organisations to recognise the problem of Hinduphobia as a systemic challenge to civil society, and ensure that the representation of Hindu deities and traditions is handled with the same reverence and sensitivity as those of other religious minorities.
We appeal to the better angels of our leaders as well as ordinary Canadians. The issue that we are facing is not about isolated incidents, nor is it about two minuscule minorities who are obsessing over rivalries in their ancestral lands. This is about here and now, it is about all of Canada, it is about what we stand for, and most importantly, it is about what kind of society we want to build and leave for our children and grandchildren.
Pushpita Prasad is a communications professional. She serves on the board of the Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA). She tweets @pushpita. Rishabh Sarswat is an Environmental Scientist and the President of CoHNA Canada. He tweets @rishabh_sarswat. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)